Owner Story: One Happy Saturn Family

In September of 2003, I was the very satisfied owner of a 1987 Pontiac Grand Am. That car had been with me for quite a long time and had seen a fair amount of action. Sure, it wasn't a perfect car. In fact, the poor thing had a computer problem that sometimes caused the engine to stall at idle. This presented some interesting intersection situations, but that's another story entirely.

On the evening of September 11, 2003, I had just gotten out of my night class that I was taking at the local university. I hopped in my car and proceeded to drive home. On the way home, I came to an intersection to which I had the right-of-way to proceed through. As I drove through the intersection, a red car came from the opposite direction and turned left directly in front of me, causing a 35-mile-per-hour, nearly head-on collision. Fortunately, as I always do, I was wearing my safety belt and was pretty much unscathed. Some of the kids in the other car were a bit banged up, but I think everyone survived. Needless to say, my old car was toast. It was an emotional parting for me because I had had that car for so long and had grown quite attached.

Anyhow, as the days went on, I found myself in a whirlwind of car buying. Finally, I saw this little white 1999 Saturn SL2 for sale on a used car lot. I had never really considered Saturn before, but decided to give this one a try. I really liked the styling and how sleek it looked. When I test drove it, I was very impressed by the power that the little 1.9L generated (and with good fuel economy to boot). I was also impressed by what most people on the Internet forums had to say about the Saturn S-series, and their 5-star crash test rating. So, I bought the car.

When I took the car home, my family was quite impressed with it. It was a light car that was fun to drive and looked good too. About a year later, my sister bought an SL2 with a 5-speed manual gearbox. I have to say that I'm really very impressed with the 5-speed.

A few months after that, my dad replaced his old, worn-out '89 Ford Bronco II with a 2002 L300. He really has liked that car, despite the accident that the car went through at the hands of my younger brother.

During all this, I got married and my wife and I really have enjoyed the reliability and fuel efficiency of the little SL2. It's been a rock-solid car in terms of reliability and even getting up to 450 miles on a tank of gas. The only complaint I have about the car is not even the fault of the car but the result of a previous owner. There is some slight front-end damage that necessitates me having to do fairly frequent alignments.

After my dad bought his L300, he wanted to surprise my mom who was still driving her '85 Chevy Suburban with 350,000 miles. (Yeah, we drive cars until their wheels fall off.) He bought her a 2003 L200 with all the amenities. I've never seen her more satisfied with a car. She can drive it and not have to worry about it not starting, which was often the case with the old Suburban.

Finally, in July of 2006, my wife and I decided that we really needed a second car with school set to start in a month and each of us working at different locations. Previous to that we had been using my car and a motorcycle to get around, which was fine for the summer, but bad news for the winter. We searched and searched until we found a car that my wife really liked: a burgundy 2000 LW2 with all the options (except leather seats). This car has been a dream. We used it to take a camping trip into the mountains, and it will be perfect for when kids start coming. Being a family-friendly car company is something I have really appreciated Saturn for. They haven't been pumping all of their resources into building big, gas hogging trucks. They build practical, functional, and fun-to-drive automobiles.

I can't say that we have always bought the newest models out there. In fact, all of the Saturns that my family has purchased have been used cars. But, I can say that my family is very satisfied with the five Saturns that we own. The Saturn retailers (specifically Saturn of Riverdale and Saturn of Salt Lake) have been really helpful and friendly. I have personally never felt so well treated by a car dealer as I have by the Saturn facilities. They make me feel like a human being.

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